You're uncorking more than you think

While wine is never going to take the place of your daily green juice as a health tonic, it turns out there are better, cleaner bottles to sip and share with your holiday party hosts. And it’s only getting easier to find them.

“There’s definitely been an explosion of interest in natural, organic, and biodynamic wines, both from consumers and from wine bars, restaurants, and producers,” says Adam Morganstern, editor of Organic Wine Journal.

This interest naturally creates more choices for wine-lovers, since not only are more winemakers choosing to try healthier methods, but more producers are “coming out of the organic closet,” Morganstern explains. “A lot of the world’s top winemakers have already been organic, but they haven’t put it on their label because they were afraid it would scare consumers off. Now, they see it as a benefit.”

The problem? Tangled regulations and haphazard labeling systems make it difficult to determine what’s actually going on at a vineyard when you’re standing in a wine shop. So, we sat down with David Lillie, co-owner of New York's Chambers Street Wines, a shop that prides itself on choosing wines made with lots of love and care and fewer toxic chemicals, who gave us these tips.

Understand what’s in the wine (and what isn’t) Just like with food, “natural,” as a category doesn’t mean much, says Lillie. But some small winemakers use it to distinguish themselves from commercial operations that use machine harvesting and lots of additives. “When grapes are broken with this [machine] method, they’re oxidizing and bacteria is growing on the way to the winery. So, later, there’s a large addition of sulfur dioxide to sterilize the wine,” explains Lillie.

Sulfur dioxide is considered unsafe for humans at a certain level, but how much you’re taking in depends on lots of factors. Commercial growers also tend to use more additives to create uniform flavor, like sugar, glycerin, and many more.

Another concern is residues from pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, especially since one 2008 study showed significant residue levels in an array of bottles from Bordeaux. An organic certification means the grapes must be grown without these chemicals, but it only regulates what happens in the vineyard, not in the cellar. (Although USDA organic also prohibits using added sulfur dioxide, EU regulations do not.) Finally, many wines are grown biodynamically, which takes organic a step further by eschewing chemicals and preserving the health of the soil.